In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam

There are numerous verbatim copies of memos that were exchanged between President Johnson, the civilian (state and defense departments), and many military officials involved in this long-drawn out, lengthy period. From these memos, McNamera explained the circumstances, strategy, and thinking behind himself and others in the political, historical, and Cold War context of the time.

He repeatedly (in my ignorant opinion) took honest and objective attempts to highlight and elucidate the (by his own admission many cases of faulty) reasoning behind why forces were there in the first place, and why escalation continued throughout the 1960s. Many Southeast Asian political factors external to Vietnam were factors in the decision to enter, escalate, and proceed, as the U.S. military did in this conflict.

Some factors were: Sukarno in Indonesia (who was later toppled), Mao Zedong's promotion of "perpetual world-wide struggle through revolution," the Domino Theory (which we now know as false, but then it was difficult to know), among many other Cold War events that took place in the decade of the 1960s. The Cuban Missile Crisis, construction of the Iron Curtain, airlifts to Berlin, Khrushchev stating "we will bury you," and the mistakenly held perception that there was a "Sino-Soviet" pact, when in fact, the two didn't like each other.

McNamera noted more than once that there were no "experts" on Vietnam and Southeast Asian historical, culture, and contemporary politics. They often consulted "experts" on the Soviets, Chinese, and other adversaries, who were often proved to be correct and were vital to the formulation and implementation of foreign and military policy. In Vietnam they chose to have no "experts" to turn to who knew the people. As McNamera noted, he and the military and administration didn't know very much at all about Vietnam, and its' history.

A major point McNamera commonly stated was the perception of Ho Chi Minh by senior American political and military officials. Was Ho Chi Minh: 1. a nationalist who wanted to unify his country and expel foreigners who had subjugated Vietnam for hundreds of years (who also happened to be a communist, in the likes of Tito, independent of Peking and Moscow), or was he 2. A communist, who was promulgating Vietnamese unification under communism not only in Vietnam but also in neighboring South Eastern Asian nations. 3. A part of both or neither of 1. or 2. The answer now leans toward number 1. quite heavily. Should they have been aware of this then? McNamera says "yes."

Although their decisions were terrible an important thing for the reader to be constantly be aware of is: the context of when these thoughts, strategies, and actions took place. The 1960s were from a radically different world than that of today. One can't even imagine, if compared to 2003. The 1960s were the most intense decade during the Cold War. Presently, to make more than a couple of assumptions or critiques of the decisions made back during the conflict can easily (although not necessarily)lead to the comparison of "apples & oranges."

McNamera probably wanted to expunge himself of some of the blame he's often been given by history regarding the disastrous foreign policy-making in Vietnam that still is referred to by some as "McNamera's War." This is in part, but not entirely, true of course. Pointing mainly and/or only to McNamera is big-time oversimplification.

How interesting it is that a civilian intellectual Auto Executive can all of a sudden become Secretary of Defense in a single day. After getting a phone call from JFK and receiving Kennedy's job offer, McNamera replied he wasn't qualified to be Secretary of Defense, whereas JFK rhetorically asked "who is?" The rest is history: go figure.

Communists are indeed rotten autocratic people who've failed miserably. Communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism and Maoism was the biggest mistake of the 20th Century. Yes, if the Pentagon bureaucrats and civilian leaders had simply read a couple of books on Vietnamese history they might have had a more balanced view of the objectives of the Viet Minh, NVA, and let the chips fall where they knew they were going long before Saigon fell.

This book is a powerful explanation of what many people called "McNamara's War." It is intellectually honest, well-researched and an enormous insight to how President Lyndon Johnson's White House operated. The author explains how Johnson inherited a "God-awful" mess eminently more dangerous than the one Kennedy had inherited from Eisenhower. One evening not long after he took office, Johnson confessed to his aide Bill Moyers that he felt like a catfish that had "just grabbed a big juicy worm with a right sharp hook in the middle of it," McNamara writes. In the last two chapters, "Estrangement and Departure" and "The Lessons of Vietnam" McNamara bravely admits many mistakes. The most glaring was not holding the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff accountable for its many reporting failures. It took McNamara nearly thirty years to finally tell his side of the story. It was worth the wait.

For anyone wishing to better understand the Vietnam War this is a must read. As usual McNamara fills his book with tables and statistics that tend to support his view of Vietnam. Boiled down to its utmost simplicity there are really only several points of controversy in Vietnam. 1. The strategy as promulgated by the General Westmoreland (known as "Westy" by McNamara) was A. Let the South Vietnamese troops basically provide security in the villages and Hamlets, and have US Troops (sometimes assisted by those few South Vietnamese military units that were well organized and disciplined) engage in "Search and Destroy" missions. This was essentially the "war of attrition" philosophy. This was contrasted by the philosphy of having US troops guaranty security of the hamlets and villages so as to encourage the South Vietnamese to cooperate with the South Vietnamese Government. This philosophy was promoted by the United States Marines, primarily Lt. General Victor Krulak as described in his book, "First To Fight", a book not about Vietnam as such but about the Marine Corps. Krulak believes that Gen. Westmoreland's strategy was thus fundamentally flawed and I agree with him. 2.The second major point was that the "military's hands were tied" by McNamara and the President in that it was forbidden to fight in North Vietnam and the concurrent refusal to cut off the supply of military material to the North Vietnamese by bombing and mining the port of Haiphong and hitting other shipping and communications facilities in North Vietnam. On this important point it is vital for the reader to understand that neither North or South Vietnam hadd any material manufacturing abiltiy. All of North Vietnams military material came from either Russia or China or their allies. McNamara's point is that the bombing of Haiphong and other points would have not worked anyway due to the relatively small amount of material need to sustain the North Vietnamese regulars and the Vietcong. North Vietnam has large manpower willing to virtually carry supplies on his back to supply its own troops and the Vietcong. If Haiphong was cut off certainly the supplies would be sent through rail links to China. This point is crucial. McNamara and the President delieved that by bombing Haiphong and other points China and perhaps Russia would directly enter the war. Nobody now can know if that is true. What does seem to make sense is that McNamara's point that the bombing would not work as supplies would still flow into North and South Vietnam in amounts sufficient to maintain both the North Vietnamese regulars and the Vietcong. Another point brought out in McNamara's book is how close we came to use nuclear and biological weapons as proposed by the United States Military in their plan to bomb and mine Haiphong and other points. This account of nuclear weapons use was recently declassied and it is truly scary how close nuclear weapons night have been used. No one of course knows that even if nuclear weapons were used what would have happened. McNamara does not deny that both he and the President did not want to use nuclear or chemical weapons because of the risks involved of the third world war. I agree that such a decision, made at the time was right. 3. McNamara further points out that the Vietnam war was doomed from the get go because of the lack of a strong, popularly supported government in South Vietnam. This obvious point is true. I believe that the only way the South Vietnamese people would have ever supported government would have been to provide security to the villages and hamlets by following the philosophy of Marine General Victor Krulak and his ilk. There is no doubt that McNamara was right. Without popular support the Vietnam war was doomed from the start. The last important point is that if McNamara thought the Vietnam war was doomed from the start and as McNamara points out that there were specific points that the United States should have pulled out why did he not say so. If McNamara felt as strong as he did about the unwinability of the war why did he not resign and say so. If McNamara did take such action what effect would it have on the future conduct of the war after McNamara resigned in protest. No one knows of course. NcNamara points out that his philosophy is that such action is just not right. McNamara feels that cabinet members owe their loyalty to the President and not anybody or anything else. This is where McNamara and I differ. McNamara points out that ours is not a parliamentary system as in England where the cabinet ministers revolt and call a new elections as recently did happen in England. This may be true but I believe that McNamara is wrong. The duty anyone owes is to the people of the United States and its Constitution and not to any one person even if that person is the President. The best example of a cabinet officer to resign in protest was that of Attorney General Elliot Richardson when he resigned in protest in the so called "Saturday Night Massacre". This is an important point and it should not be forgotten. It must be further pointed out that when McNamara "resigned, or quit" there were approximately 20,000 American dead. When the war ended in 1972/73 the total American dead was 58,000. McNamara resignation may have preventeed at least some of those 38,000 Americans who came not in glory but in body bags. Unusual in most books is that McNamara prints both favorable and unfavorable reviews and point by point answers his critics. One may not agree with McNamara but at the very least this book should be read to better understand all the actors points of view at the time. I would like to point out two upcoming events that anybody wishing to further understand Vietnam is that as this review is being written there is conference being held in Hanoi with McNamara and North Vietnamese military officials on the Vietnam War. This is the first time that meetings have happened at this level. The second event is a book which I have not read that is being pubished July 1, 1997 called "Dereliction of Duty" by H. R. McMaster. From the publishers hype this also appears another book to be read. Bernard Barton(BBarton@worldnet.att.net)

AS A VETERAN OF TWO TOURS IN VIETNAM, I HAD ALWAYS BELIEVED ROBERT S. MCNAMARA TO BE ONE OF THE TRULY EVIL INDIVIDUALS OF RECENT TIMES. THE FACTS AS SET FORTH IN THIS BOOK, IN HIS OWN WORDS AND THOSE OF HIS CO-AUTHOR, HAVE CHANGED THAT OPINION OF SOME THIRTY YEARS. I NO LONGER BELIEVE HIM EVIL, MERELY STUPID. READ IT

I listened to the audio tape of this book because I intended to see Fog of War. The documentary about Robert McNamara's views, expressed in this book. This book gives McNamara's, views on war and peace in the nuclear age based on his experience as Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968 under presidents Kennedy and Johnson and his service as a staff officer to General Curtis LeMay during WWII. General LeMay's command was responsible of the fire bombing of Japanese cities (bombing that in the aggregate did more damage and took more lives than the nuclear events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki). One wonders why, if firebombing was so destructive, was it necessary to use nuclear bombs. McNamara does state that President Truman's decision to use nuclear weapons was correct.

The premise of this book is that given human fallibility and the power of nuclear weapons to destroy entire nations in a few minutes we must be better prepared to solve international problems through diplomatic means or mediation by third parties i.e. the United Nations. Further if there is to be a war it has to be done with multilateral consent and not just one nation squaring off against another.

This book is broader than just McNamara's experience in Vietnam it details his life experiences that led him to his conclusions. Conclusions that include his belief that the Vietnam War was a mistake and that in the case of Japan, General Curtis LeMay's comment that they would all be prosecuted as war criminals because of the fire bombing if we lost the war, was probably correct. This is balanced by the fact, he points out, that sometimes you must do evil to accomplish good i.e. countless American lives were saved by the fire and nuclear bombing of Japan.

McNamara states when we entered the Vietnam War we knew we could not win because we wanted to avoid a larger war with China and possibly Russia. Mr. McNamara knew this in 1962 or 1963 because intelligence reports including CIA evaluations revealed that bombing in itself could not stop North Vietnam from supplying the South with men and supplies and since the supplies of war was generated outside North Vietnam we were powerless to destroy the means of production also. Our leaders knew for every troop commitment by the U.S. the North Vietnamese could match it with an increase of their own troop strength. Further it became obvious that the will to fight in the South basically centered in the Army and not the people. After Diem and his brother were assassinated with U.S. complicity, there was no viable political base to build on. We lost the hearts and minds of the people to the Viet Cong very early.

Mr. McNamara points out that the only way out of Vietnam was unilateral withdrawal because the North knew it was winning and there was nothing to negotiate. Bombing did not seriously interdict their ability to wage the war or recruit men to fight.

So how did we go there in the first place? Mr. McNamara believes it was caused by the lack of experienced U.S. Southeast Asia experts. The fall of China and the subsequent McCarthy witch-hunts had effectively purged our government of knowledgeable experts on the area. He makes the point that to the Vietnamese the war was a fight against colonialist aggressors and a civil war. Vietnam had been in a battle to free itself from Chinese domination and later French domination for a thousand years. The Americans were seen as a new colonialist aggressor while we saw ourselves in a battle to stop communist expansion.

In the end the lives of 58000 Americans and three million Vietnamese (The equivalent of twenty seven million Americans. McNamara loves numbers and their relationships) were lost on misperceptions given as advice to our presidents and political leaders. Advice McNamara disagreed with and which ultimately caused his dismissal by President Johnson. This is documented by statements on tape and internal government documents since released. The hawks appear to be senators, congressmen, cabinet members and outside experts buttressed by the Joint Chiefs who were always for escalation and a military solution which would have been impossible with out a probable third world war with nuclear consequences for every living soul on earth.

McNamara points out in October 1963 the military had advised the invasion of Cuba when unbeknownst to us the Russians had ninety tactical nuclear weapons and about sixty strategic nuclear weapons in Cuba. If Kennedy and Kruschev were unable to negotiate a peaceful withdrawal there would have been a nuclear exchange with the probable end of human civilization as we know it. The same situation occurred in Vietnam if we had followed military advice and escalated the war by using tactical nuclear devices China would felt threatened and entered the war.

McNamara makes the point that in this nuclear age we cannot go to war over a misunderstanding of another nations actions. A nuclear exchange offers no
room for correction or change of policy or goals once its done its all over.

History is plastic as it unfolds and in the heat of the moment one decision can lead to unintended results and history is always plastic in the subsequent interpretation and evaluation of events and so it is with McNamara and his views. One thing McNamara has right is that we cannot have a nuclear exchange by large powers or even lesser powers, ever, or else we will see Armageddon in our time.

This book is a clear statement of the terms of life in the nuclear age. As McNamara points out we are not going to change human nature but communication and understanding can be improved. I have written a longer review of the book and film at mechanic-al.org/Ed